Aside from 476/479 the last two winters, they haven't run at all since August 2015. Only one or two of them in the morning and one or two at night will continue to Greenfield sometime in the spring. A couple of the existing shuttles will be replaced different ones (ex 493 will be replaced by 471 or 571).

So far the only losses in service along the line I can see based on the proposed schedules are the elimination of the weekday southbound Shuttle 493 and the elimination of the Berlin and Wallingford stops on the Vermonter. The loss of 493 only really affects stations north of Hartford as proposed CTrail train 4455 will operate around the same timeframe as Amtrak 493 and will maintain the connection to NE Reg 93 but will only run from Hartford to New Haven. Although Springfield folks will lose 93 as a connection they will gain weekday southbound connections to Acela 2151 (new Shuttle 451), NE Reg 171 (new Shuttle 471), NE Reg 173 (new Shuttle 473), and Acela 2175 (new Shuttle 417) as a result of the changes. It will be nice to have direct connections to Acela trains finally. Springfield folks who used to use 493 will be able to use 471 or 473 instead. Connections to additional Acela and NE Reg trains will also be possible by using the CTrail trains. If I missed any other eliminations in there someone let me know.

As much and i would like to see it, all bets are off on if this service will actually launch, or perhaps more likely, last, given how broke CT is... Not trying to be overly negative but I've lived here 10 years and every 2 years we have a bigger budget deficit than the last one. I could see them killing either this or the busway within the next few years. This is, after all, the state that built a monorail at its airport and then never ran it once and tore it down.

In 1976, an experimental monorail was completed to link the terminal to a parking lot seven-tenths of a mile away. The "people mover" cost US$4 million and was anticipated to cost $250 thousand annually to operate. Due to the high anticipated operating cost, the monorail was never put in service and was dismantled in 1984 to make room for a new terminal building. The retired vehicles from the system are now on display at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, CT. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley ... al_Airport

Perhaps they will abandon the dedicated CTrail trains and implement a reduced program using just Amtrak. They have already modified their plans as originally the added service was all supposed to be commuter trains and they have reduced the commuter service to 8 trips and increased the Amtrak service by 3 to try to keep the promise of 17 round trips presumably for cost reasons. Maybe they will do something similar to the following:1) Add the additional Amtrak trains as planned.2) Implement the higher speeds from all the track work on the Amtrak service and adjust the schedule to take it into account.3) Have the Amtrak trains stop at New Haven State Street.4) Adjust the Amtrak SPG-NHV pricing to what was going to be used for the CTrail trains.5) Allow Connecticut commuter rail pass holders to use the SPG-NHV Amtrak service.6) Abandon or indefinitely delay the launch of the CTrail operated service.

Not what was promised but at least would give something from all the money that was spent, but hopefully it wont come to that.

The reason why the CTRail schedule is on a slow ramp-up is because the Springfield layover facility at Armory Jct. hasn't been built yet. That's the one funding piece for the Hartford Line that MassDOT was on the hook for as the largest payee, and they've so far refused to proceed with it without fed grant help. CDOT physically can't do 17 round trips without it, because Springfield Union and the old AMTK mail yard by the junction are too small to juggle a full commuter slate with the Amtrak schedule. They have limited slots to idle, which is why the starter schedule has so many trains running just NHV-HFD.

It'll get done. CDOT's not really ready for the full-blast Springfield schedule anyway with Windsor Depot still needing ADA platforms, Windsor Locks still needing to relocate up the street to a new station location fed by faster airport shuttles, and the bulk of Enfield/Thompsonville station construction beyond basic land clearing still yet to begin. All 3 of those north-of-HFD intermediates lagged the rest of the project by a few years because of late funding releases and are only now full-funded, final-designed, and shovel-ready. And there's still work to do with the North Haven and West Hartford infills, as well as the whole multimodal follow-through of connecting all those stops to new/enhanced last-mile local buses and private business shuttles started with economic development $$$. Hartford Line was always intended to be a slow-cooker like that during its first 5 years until all the connecting pieces were in place to really drive the ridership to an increased schedule. The Year 1 ridership is probably going to be tidy because of all the other moving parts that are still cooking, and that's why they aren't sweating reassignment of the Shuttles yet.

As for MassDOT, they may simply be looking for a way to roll up Armory Layover in a wad with further action on the NNEIRI studies for the Inland Route, since Shuttles being extended to Boston would mean MassDOT could claim some of Amtrak's share of layover space at that joint AMTK-CDOT storage + MOW facility for future Knowledge Corridor commuter rail without needing to pay more to outright expand the yard beyond current plans. They can't punt it off forever, and certainly cannot ever consider homegrown Conn River Line commuter rail without full-funding that facility for AMTK + Hartford Line in advance. Right now just appears they're picking their spots for most opportune timing and advantageous financing to jump in and aren't in any present-day hurry to put a rush on it.

It’s official the long bus-stituted Shuttles are back in business. Rode the 490 this morning, first 490 train since 2015. I was heading back from Washington on 190 and the conductor said that it was still buses to Springfield even through everything I heard other than that said 490 train. So I was curious as to what was going to be waiting in NHV but sure enough there was the 490 sitting across the platform waiting. Slow going on the New Haven-Springfield line today north of Hartford. Two broken rail spots one in Windsor the other in Enfield. Crews on site working the problem but trains having to crawl through the area.

Nearly every transportation project in the State of Connecticut has been postponed indefinitely. Included in that is the CDOT fleet replacement and Phase III of the Springfield Line. Phase III was everything North of Windsor and the new stations.

ConnDOT will NOT be involved with the Greenfield Ma service,that is MassDOT's problem,recycling some stored MBB coaches and F40's.The Layup yard in Springfield will be a ConnDOT/MassDOT "shared" project/problem.

Backshophoss wrote:ConnDOT will NOT be involved with the Greenfield Ma service,that is MassDOT's problem,recycling some stored MBB coaches and F40's.The Layup yard in Springfield will be a ConnDOT/MassDOT "shared" project/problem.

Armory layover is shared CDOT/Amtrak, but primarily MassDOT-funded because CDOT can't pay across the state line and that was considered fair division of costs for MA not having to pay much at all for the spoils of the track work south of the border. It's been MassDOT's unwillingness to pay that's kept it from advancing to design, so too many Hartford Line trains have to short-turn in Hartford for the first several years from lack of layover space. MassDOT cannot hope to advance its own Knowledge Corridor service without paying what it agreed to for this layover, so all talk is moot until they get this moving.

asull85 wrote:Nearly every transportation project in the State of Connecticut has been postponed indefinitely. Included in that is the CDOT fleet replacement and Phase III of the Springfield Line. Phase III was everything North of Windsor and the new stations.

The governor is laying this out to see if the 2018 legislature that starts its session in February will come up with more money (ie: gas tax increase, vehicle mileage tax, tolls, ect:) to pay for all of this. Bonding for all of this is going to cost a lot more money because the states bond rating is in the dumper. We may see how all of this plays out by summer if were lucky. Another interesting year ahead.